"Ruth Reichl - Tender at the Bone V1.0" - читать интересную книгу автора (Reichl Ruth)

************************************************************
Author: Ruth Reichl
Title: Tender at the Bone
Original copyright year:
Genre: Memoir / Food
Version: 1.0
Date of e-text:
Source:
Prepared by:
Comments: Please correct the errors you find in this e-text,
update the version number and redistribute
*************************************************************
Tender at the Bone - By Ruth Reichl

From back cover:
At an early age, Ruth Reichl discovered that "food could be a way of making sense of the world . . . . If you watched people as they ate, you could find out who they were." Here deliciously crafted memoir, Tender at the Bone, is the story of a life determined, enhanced, and defined in equal measure by a passion for food, unforgettable people, and the love of tales well told. Beginning with Reichl's mother, the notorious food-poisoner known as the Queen of Mold, Reichl introduces us to the fascinating characters who shaped her world and her tastes, from the gourmand Monsieur du Croix, who served Reichl her first souffle, to those at her politically correct table in Berkeley who championed the organic food revolution in the 1970s. Spiced with Reichl's infectious humor and sprinkled with her favorite recipes, Tender at teh Bone is a witty and compelling chronicle of a culinary sensualist's coming-of-age.

"An absolute delight to read . . . how lucky we are that [Reichl] had the courage to follow her appetite. --Newsday

"While all good food writers are humorous . . . few are so riotously, effortlessly entertaining as Ruth Reichl . . . [She] is also witty, fair-minded, brave, and a wonderful writer." --Chicago Sun-Times


Tender at the Bone
By Ruth Reichl


AUTHOR'S NOTE

Storytelling, in my family, was highly prized. While my father walked home from work he rearranged the events of his day to make them more entertaining, and my mother could make a trip to the supermarket sound like an adventure. If this required minor adjustments of fact, nobody much minded: it was certainly preferable to boring your audience.
The good stories, of course, were repeated endlessly until they took on a life of their own. One of the stories I grew up on was a family legend about myself. Its point was to demonstrate my extraordinary maturity, even at the age of two. This is how my father told it:
"One Sunday in early fall we were sitting in our house in the country admiring the leaves outside the picture window. Suddenly the telephone rang: it was Miriam's mother in Cleveland, saying that her father was gravely ill. She had to go immediately, leaving me alone with Ruthie, who was to start nursery school the next day.
"I, of course, had to be in the office Monday morning. Worse, I had an appointment I could not cancel; I simply had to catch the 7:07 to New York. But the school didn't open until eight, and although I phoned and phoned, I was unable to reach any of the teachers. I just didn't know what to do.
"In the end, I did the only thing I could think of, At seven I took Ruthie to the school, sat her on a swing outside and told hen to tell the teachers when they came that she was Ruthie Reichl and she
had come to go to school. She sat there, waving bravely as I drove off. I knew she'd be fine; even then she was very responsible." He always ended by smiling proudly in my direction.
Nobody ever challenged this story. I certainly didn't. It was not until I had a child of my own that I realized that nobody, not even my father, would leave a two-year-old alone on a swing in a strange place for an hour. Did he exaggerate my age? The length of time? Both? By then my father was no longer available for questions, but I am sure that if he had been he would have insisted that the story was true. For him it was.
This book is absolutely in the family tradition. Everything here is true, but it may not be entirely factual, In some cases I have compressed events; in others I have made two people into one. I have occasionally embroidered.
I learned early that the most important thing in life is a good story.

1 - THE QUEEN OF MOLD

This is a true story.
Imagine a New York City apartment at six in the morning. It is a modest apartment in Greenwich Village. Coffee is bubbling in an electric percolator. On the table is a basket of rye bread, an entire coffee cake, a few cheeses, a platter of cold cuts. My mother has been making breakfast-a major meal in our house, one where we sit down to fresh orange juice every morning, clink our glasses as if they held wine, and toast each other with "Cheerio. Have a nice day"
Right now she is the only one awake, but she is getting impatient for the day to begin and she cranks WQXR up a little louder on the radio, hoping that the noise will rouse everyone else. But Dad and I are good sleepers, and when the sounds of martial music have no effect she barges into the bedroom and shakes my father awake.
"Darling," she says, "I need you. Get up and come into the kitchen."
My father, a sweet and accommodating person, shuffles sleepily down the hall. He is wearing loose pajamas, and the strand of hair he combs over his bald spot stands straight up. He leans against the sink, holding on to it a little, and obediently opens his mouth when my mother says, "Try this."
Later, when he told the story, he attempted to convey the awfulness of what she had given him, The first time he said that it tasted like cat toes and rotted barley, but over the years the description got better, Two years later it had turned into pigs' snouts and mud and five years later he had refined the flavor into a mixture of antique anchovies and moldy chocolate.

Whatever it tasted like, he said it was the worst thing he had ever had in his mouth, so terrible that it was impossible to swallow, so terrible that he leaned over and spit it into the sink and then grabbed the coffeepot, put the spout into his mouth, and tried to eradicate the flavor.
My mother stood there watching all this. When my father finally put the coffeepot down she smiled and said, "Just as I thought. Spoiled!"